


Back To Life

by jencsi



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 14:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21056003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencsi/pseuds/jencsi
Summary: Based off the events in Karma To Burn.





	Back To Life

She cannot stop crying. It feels like it’s been days, but her brain knows it’s only been a few hours. She keeps her eyes closed, unable to stare into semi darkness any longer. It hurts. The small amount of greenish light she has hurts her eyes and her head. She wants to be sick but holds it in for the sake of her predicament. Her fingers ache from clawing at the plexiglass surface, struggling, terrified. Now she has given up on that, curling up, huddling, trying to make herself smaller in an already small space, defeated. Sobs wrack her body, and she knows she shouldn’t breathe this hard and waste what little oxygen she has left but she can’t help it. She whimpers into the dark enclosed space, it’s the only sound she has left in her. She knows someone will come, someone will find her, but at what cost to her and the rest of the team? 

“I’m sorry,” she sobs out involuntarily, over and over as if this is somehow her fault. If she had listened. If she had been more careful. Not this time though. This was planned for a while. She manages to twist her body and slip out of the leather jacket she was wearing all night, propping it under her head to give her some comfort but it’s temporary. With her eyes closed, she pictures him, imagines him fretting over her, losing his mind over what’s happening, he needs her more than she needs him, and it kills her that he’s suffering worse than her. With the last images of him from the night burned in her memory, it’s all she has to watch besides her own, slow, painful demise. She aches for him, his arms around her, the way he kisses her forehead, she wants to be soothed, to be told it’s going to be okay. But he’s not here. He can’t comfort her. She’s on her own. Nothing she isn’t used to. With him, she knew it was different. It wasn’t fair that they had barely gotten any time together prior to this attack. And now she may never see him again. Alone with only her thoughts and whimpers to occupy her, she curls up into a tiny ball, stretching one arm out towards the wall where she knows the camera is, begging for help with her eyes, knowing they can hear her, her fingers grazing the bottom of the lens that is just visible, embedded into the plexiglass wall. It’s as close to him as she can get right now and maybe as close as she will ever get again. 

*************************************************************************************

“That bastard,” he snaps, beginning to shake, full of rage. It takes Russell holding him back to keep him from jumping through the plexiglass window separating them from disgraced undersheriff McKeen on the other side. 

“First he kills Warrick then he takes her,” he recounts the horrors this man has unleashed on them “I’m going to kill him.”

“If you do that, we’ll never find her,” Russell reasons with him. 

“Easy for you to say,” Nick snaps “you got Katie back.”

While it was true that the little girl had only been taken as a ruse to lure Finn into their trap, Russell was still distraught over Finn’s predicament. He cared about her too. Yet he blamed himself for not noticing the pair becoming closer over the last few months. Someone had been watching, and they knew exactly how to get to Nick. Maybe this was why the veteran CSI had avoided relationships; fear of losing someone he loved. But with her, it was different, Russell knew. She knew the job, the horrors they saw, the pain they endured, she was understanding, compassionate and it was obvious how they fell for each other. 

The longer they stood outside this interrogation room, debating how to approach this monster, the more time they wasted not looking for Finn. Detective Moreno was scouring through all the nightclubs Crenshaw, his partner, liked to visit and take dates. So far, none had broken any leads. Nick was watching McKeen through the two-way glass, how he just sat there, smug, like he owned the world. He should have killed the monster when he had him cornered in the desert all those years ago. None of this would be happening right now. The sound of footsteps made them both turn to see Greg approaching them, looking worried. 

“You guys need to see this,” he murmured, shell shocked to their confusion. 

He took them into the A/V lab where the big monitor was on and Archie, Sara, Hodges, and Henry were gathered around it. Morgan was still at the hospital with Ecklie who was recovering from surgery. 

“Someone dropped this off in an envelope at the station half an hour ago,” Greg explained, clicking on the remote which brought up a video. 

Finn was there, seated in the same type of chair Katie had told Russell she was tied to. Kimball and Crenshaw were standing near her. She looked disheveled and scared. Nick felt his pulse quicken at the sight of her tied to the chair looking helpless. 

“Give McKeen his money or she dies,” Kimball’s voice cut through the air, vicious. 

“Don’t listen to them!” Finn yelled at the screen “it’s a trap, don’t do it!” 

She was silenced by Crenshaw pulling her hair and Kimball holding her face to keep her still. Her whimpers in pain and fear made Nick’s blood boil, anger coursing through him. 

The video cut off into darkness, displaying handwritten latitude and longitude coordinates. 

“That’s where she is,” Nick yelled “we need to send someone there now!” 

“We can’t,” Sara said trying to be gentle, “we mapped those coordinates, they lead to nothing but desert, she’s not there Nick.”

The video started up again before he could shout his frustration. It’s dark for a moment, then a greenish light appears, illuminating a reflective surface. They can hear heavy breathing mixed with whimpers and cries. The camera starts to focus, and she appears, laying sideways, facing the camera’s view but looking unphased by it. She continues to cry but they cannot make out any source of her pain. As the camera focuses better, Nick makes out four walls, four tiny, plastic looking walls, and nothing but darkness behind her, black and brown, dirt, he knows it now. His heart beats faster in his chest, nausea hitting him as he thinks back to all those years ago, the same place, the same darkness. He can’t breathe and neither can she. They did this to her, just like Walter Gordon did to him. And now his soul is on fire, he burns with fury as he screams at the video, horrified, disgusted, sick to his stomach and there’s nothing he can do to save her. 

************************************************************************************

Sharp shooting pain radiates through her skull when Crenshaw pulled her hair. Kimball’s hands on her face disgusts her. She thrashes her head trying to shake him off but he’s too strong. 

“Your boyfriend better get his head on straight and do what we asked.” Kimball threatens her. 

“You won’t break him,” she snarls, defensive “he’s stronger than you think.”

“Tell me, Jules,” Kimball hisses her nickname menacingly “what do you really know about Nick Stokes?” 

“I know him,” she defends their relationship, so new and so wonderful. 

“Do you know what he’s capable of?” Kimball continues his delusion “you may think he’s kind and good and gentle, but he has a dark side sweetheart, things happened to him that you’ll never understand, I bet he hasn’t even told you yet?”

Julie had no answer for him because she only knew what was conveyed to her from Sara and Greg and Nick but in as little details as possible. She knew of his stalker; she knew of his kidnapping and Warrick’s murder at the hands of McKeen, but very generic things. They had not gotten around to talking much in their hurried moments together. But they would have, eventually. Right? 

“You’re sick,” she snaps at him “you don’t know him, you don’t!”

Her throat burns from yelling the last words at Kimball, hoping to throw him off whatever sick twisted plan he has for her and Nick. 

“Fine,” he says coolly “if that’s how you feel.”

He motions to Crenshaw who pulls her hair again making her cry out, then starts untying the ropes binding her to the chair. She barely has time to think straight when she’s forced to stand, her knees aching, wanting to collapse under her. Crenshaw marches her out of their secret room and outside into the dark, dry night air. Her eyes struggle to adjust to her surroundings. She can see machines for digging and construction work in the distance as well as service trucks, a greenhouse, plants and piles of dirt. They march her closer to one pile of dirt, surrounded by dimly lit flood lights, just enough to see the dirt path but not to draw attention to themselves. When they stop walking, she’s confused, are they letting her run and fight for her life? With her arm twisted behind her in Crenshaw’s tight grip, she can’t fight like she usually would. The pressure on her arm is killing her but she is suddenly pushed onto the ground, landing on something hard, not quite dirt but plastic? As she struggles to turn over, she feels a blow to the side of her face and nothing but darkness follows. 

***********************************************************************************************************************

“We have to do something!” he yells at his stationary co-workers who don’t seem the slightest bit ramped up about this. 

“We need to think first,” Russell steps in “she could be anywhere, the oxygen in there won’t last forever, the sooner we find evidence, the faster we can get to her.”

“Screw your Zen crap!” Nick lashes out to him “the coordinates have got to mean something.”

“We can keep digging,” Hodges says in poor taste “Henry and I will keep looking, I mean.”

“Fine!” Nick yells, pacing, running his hand through his hair, completely unhinged, desperate to hold her. He can’t look at the video without feeling sick. How could this happen again? And to her? Those bastards knew, they dug in his file, they knew everything. He had worked so hard to shut that memory out, now he was forced to relive it in order to save her but was it enough? Her cries are killing him, piercing his heart, his soul. 

“Shut it off,” he demands “the audio, just, shut it off, please.”

He begs now and Greg silences the volume but lets the feed play. 

“It’s live Nick,” he reminds him for what good it will do. 

He can’t think clearly, or rationally. Nothing makes sense to him except firing a thousand bullets into McKeen, then hunting down Crenshaw and Kimball and doing the same. If it means digging up the entire state of Nevada with his bare hands to reach her, he would. They can’t track her cell phone since it was recovered in Crenshaw’s car at the club, they can’t find the location where she was held unless Moreno has a breakthrough, was this how helpless they all felt when he was missing? The agony of those hours weighs on him. But Crenshaw and Kimball did not give a deadline. Were they planning on keeping her alive longer? All these thoughts rush in his head fast, furious, menacingly and he can’t calm down. He wants to run but he can’t bring himself to leave the room because it would mean leaving the only view of her he has now. This was well executed, the torture a cruel irony of his own kidnapping, the wound re-opened, sliced with a jagged knife, bleeding out for all to see. 

***************************************************************************************************************************

Waking up in complete darkness, disoriented but able to recall what happened, she feels pain on the side of her face and tastes blood. She claws at the plastic encasing her, frantic, desperate, weak. Her fingers touch something round and green, a glowstick. She uses it like a lantern to see around her, the dirt packed around on all sides makes her heart race in fear. The three-extra unused glowsticks beside her are for future use which terrifies her even more. How long do these last? She’s never been more terrified in her entire life. Every part of her aches, she cannot stop shaking as she tries to find a way out of her nightmare. She remembers Sara telling her about Nick being buried alive the same way and she knows Crenshaw and Kimball have done this to get his attention, to make him cooperate. Her heart breaks for whatever danger he might be in but doesn’t realize. She clutches the glow-stick to her chest, the only thing she has to hold as she screams in agony, for what good it will do. 

He braces himself on the metal table in the A/V lab, staring at the live feed of her, trapped in a hell only he thought he would know. She trembles, curled up in the corner of the dark space. Her box looks bigger than his was, or maybe it’s because she’s so tiny. He can see bruises on her face and her hair is matted and tangled. He wants so desperately to reach out and brush her hair, feels its familiar softness, a gesture he had done only just a few days ago when they were in bed together. If he had known it may have been the last time, he would have savored it for hours more. 

“I’m sorry,” he cried to her on the screen “I’m sorry baby.”

“She’s tough,” a voice says to him from his side, not even hearing Sara enter. 

“Not for this,” Nick reminds Sara of the horrors he was dealt when taken. 

“How long?” Sara asked, “how long have you been seeing her?”

“Couple months,” he murmurs too exhausted to explain it but he has to keep talking to quiet his mind “started out just hanging out after work, drinking beer, watching the game you know, and then one night, I took a chance and kissed her, she kissed back and we just kind of went with it you know?”

Sara managed a small smile at the happiness the two shared together. She had spent hours combing over phone records of Crenshaw, trying to see if there was a connection or location he would have access to in order to pull this off. Nothing had jumped out to her. McKeen still wasn’t talking to Russell either. Greg and Hodges were combing through bank records for all three men looking for suspicious large amounts of money or any oddities. They were mostly at a dead end. Nicks mind wandered to how Finn had yelled to them that it was a trap before they silenced her. What trap? Was it meant for him? Why subject her to this agony only to take money for McKeen and run? There had to be something they were missing. Or maybe not. Maybe this really was some sick twisted game. All he had to do was strangle McKeen and make him reveal the location of his henchmen. That seemed like the most productive solution, better than sitting here watching her slowly die. His eyes locked with hers on the video feed, almost as if they were sharing some sort of moment, a connection, a desperate cry for help. 

“I know sweetheart,” he murmured to the screen, his heart aching, fitting to burst from his chest. 

His sudden leap from the table startled Sara. He tore out of the room, almost colliding with Russell in the hallway. 

“I can’t take this anymore,” Nick said to Russell “you gotta let me have a crack at McKeen.”

“We got her,” Russell said breathlessly. 

“What?” Nick shouted in alarm “how?”

“Let’s just say, I can be less Zen and more persuasive when I need to be.” Russell explained, raising his hand and showing Nick partially dried blood on his knuckles, clearly, he had gone the route Nick wanted to all along. He wasn’t the only one who cared for Finn. 

All she can do now is inhale sharply and exhale whimpers. Her head is spinning, and the darkness makes her feel drunk, disoriented, still. The first glow stick is still going strong, but she wonders if she will have the strength to crack another one if need be. 

“I’m sorry,” she cries, weaker now, continuous as she shakes. This is not the way she envisioned her death. As a CSI, there were so many ways she had seen death; bullet holes piercing skin and shredding organs, knife wounds, head traumas. She always hoped to die peacefully in her sleep at some ripe old age, not sobbing underground in a box clutching a glow stick. She was going to be just another case, another body on Doc’s table, she whimpered at that thought. And of Russell and all her friends gathering to mourn her. And of Nick whom she loved, whom she ached for, she had finally found a better love and now it was being ripped from her violently. He must have felt this awful when he was in a place like this, scared, thinking no one was coming to save him. All she can hope for now is that death is quick, and she just falls asleep. 

**********************************************************************************************************************

He doesn’t care where they are going, or why they picked this place to hide her, all he cares about is getting to her. Russell insisted on driving along with a good portion of the police force following them in squad cars. The place is just as deserted as it was the night he was rescued, why didn’t he think to look here in the first place? Because Grissom told him it was torn down? That didn’t mean you couldn’t still bury someone here. The excavators were still there, looming over the greenhouse, taunting them like statues, frozen in time, a time he didn’t want to revisit, yet here he was. 

The disturbance in the earth was so obvious, he had jumped out of the car before it came to a stop. Dropping to his knees in the dirt, he began, clawing at it, pushing it away, left and right, desperate, needing to know but also terrified of what he might find underneath. He can feel the others around him helping, pushing dirt, using shovels, whatever tool they could get their hands on. When his fingers hit something solid, he yells, digging frantically, until finally, its all pushed away and the plexiglass is visible, her blonde hair unmistakable under all the mess. He only thinks about potential explosives like there were in his case for a fraction of a second before the urge to get to her was too strong. Thankfully, no explosion met his ears as they lifted the lid at last. 

The dust rose into the air, making them cough. Nick waved it all away frantically, spotting a hauntingly familiar green glow beneath him. Blindly, he reaches down until his hand touches her leg. Relieved, he tucks his arms around her and pulls her out of her hell at last. It takes him a moment to realize she’s actually alive because she’s quiet until he hears her cry in relief. Her arms go around him, tight, desperate, clinging, and he braces himself for the fury of her emotions. He drops to his knees again, cradling her in the dirt, but on solid ground, safe, he hopes. She’s shaking, cold, terrified, a combination of both. She howls, the most heartbreaking, soul crushing sound he’s ever heard, it shatters into the night air, echoing in the emptiness of the desert and continues, she’s shattered, and he feels helpless. 

“I’ve got you,” he soothes her, putting his hand on her head and gently cradling her against his chest as she wails. Her body shakes with each sob, he can hear her trying to choke out words but she’s too upset, too winded. She’s going to need the hospital but moving her right now in this fragile state is risky. No one dares to separate them in this moment. Her fingers grab at his shirt, weak, sore. Her back aches from laying in such an awkward position for so long. He rocks her, hoping the motion will help calm her down but she’s too upset, as she has the right to be. He tries to untangle the knots in her hair, to give her some sense of normalcy but his hands are shaking too much. 

When he sees the red lights from an ambulance, he sits her up to prepare her to be moved but she keeps her face hidden in his arms, sobbing continuously. Her sharp breathing concerns him, as she has not had good oxygen flow in hours. He remembered how dizzy he felt after a while when they sat him up at the hospital and helped him breath normal again. Russell guides the paramedics over to where they are still laying in the dirt. She feels a strange hand touch her arm and she recoils, burrowing further against Nick, crying out in protest of them trying to move her. 

“Let me take her,” Nick begs, and they agree, backing up, letting him lift her with all the strength he has and guiding him to their ambulance. 

********************************************************************************************

She clings to him on the entire ride. A far cry from his ambulance ride all those years ago, Warrick and Catherine close to him, and later, Grissom, Sara and Greg at the hospital. He was grateful for all of them but wondered what it must have been like for them to see him, disheveled and broken like she was right now. He didn’t mean to keep thinking of the word broken because she was much stronger than anyone he knew, including himself, but right now, she was hurting. It must not have registered to her that they were taking her to a hospital because she didn’t respond to any of the questions the medics were asking her. They turned to Nick for answers and he hastily told them what happened. 

“Crenshaw,” she muttered, breathlessly to him “Kimball, find them Nicky.”

“We will,” he soothed her, rocking her gently, fearful she would panic if he stopped. 

In the emergency room, the rushing of nurses and doctors brought back awful memories as the descended on the entwined pair, confused about who was really hurt. One nurse made the mistake of trying to separate them and she howled again, twisting away from her, clawing at his shirt, wanting only him. 

“Just give her a minute,” Nick said shielding her from their prying hands. 

“Baby please,” he begged her “they can help you.”

He started to shift her, turning her so she would lay down on the stretcher they shared. The sensation at being put in a horizontal position again set her ablaze with panic. She lurched forward, crying out in fear. 

“Easy,” he soothed pressing his forehead against hers, holding her face in his hands, noting how she winced at his touch, the bruises hidden under dirt streaked across her cheeks. He was slow as he lowered her down onto the soft surface of the mattress, but it did nothing to soothe her. She kept trying to push past him and sit back up right. 

“You’re safe,” he reminded her, rubbing her shoulder for what good it would do. 

“I can’t breathe,” she complained, and he felt his heart race at that declaration. Was she hurt worse than he could see? Was it sheer panic at what she had endured tonight? She put her hand on her chest and whimpered “It hurts.”

He needed to calm her down, but it seemed like such an impossible task. The nurses were growing impatient with how long it was taking to properly treat her. They offered him an oxygen mask to get her breathing better. She turned her head away from it immediately, but he coaxed her into putting it on. After several deep breaths, she started to inhale normally again but the tears continued to fall, and her whimpers were continuous. He stroked her hair, wiping away specks of dirt with each pass of his hand through her curls.  
As her breathing started to slow down, so did her shaking, she was starting to understand she was safe. He remembered that constant panic, how he felt like the world was going to come crashing down on him at any time. He wouldn’t wish that pain on his worst enemy, enemies he only had because of this job, and yet here he was with her, the most precious person in his life, now changed forever by the same trauma he had endured so long ago. But she had changed him, in their short months together, since Russell hired her, she had pushed past his walls and shattered them with her brightness and charm. As terrified as she was right now, she was still the most incredibly kind person he had ever been with, her heart was fully loaded with boundless love, ready to give it to the right person and he was astounded that she had chosen him. 

After several intense minutes of helping her breathe and calming her down, the nurses and doctor began to gently pull him away from her so they could assess her injuries. She whimpered once at the sight of him leaving her bedside, but he raised his hand out to her, shakily and said, “I’ll be right outside,” and that was enough. 

*******************************************************************************************************

The wait he endured out in the waiting room was nothing compared to the time he spent trapped in that same box, surrounded by darkness and pain. He figured if it wasn’t for the ants, he might have lasted a bit longer, but his sanity shot to hell when they started crawling all over him. He shivered, having tuned out that memory for a long time, replacing it with other horrible things, and yet, memories of her invaded his mind now. Her smile, the way she peeked around the corner of the hallway to see if they would get caught by Russell or Ecklie, how her hair bounced when she walked, how she always walked with a spring in her step, hyper. How she hovered in front of him when they met up in the hallway or the lobby or parking lot, bouncing, anxious, wanting to stay with him but getting called away to work. He loved how the small details of her stuck out to him the most, like when they kissed, how his hand rested on the back of her neck, fingers brushing against her skin, how she shivered even while wearing a jacket, that infamous leather jacket she had been buried with now resided in the hands of Greg or Sara, processing it. He prayed they wouldn’t ruin it and he could get it back to her somehow, if she even wanted it back after this. He had burned the clothes he was wearing that night shortly after they were given back to him by Catherine. 

His thoughts were interrupted by a nurse, beckoning him to follow her. They had given her a private room, something big and bright to offset the dark and enclosed space she had occupied. She was waiting for him, slouching comfortably on the pillows, stretching her arms out and waving her fingers impatiently, wanting him. He closed the gap between him and her in three short steps, embracing her while she stayed laying in the bed, weak, sore. When he hugged her, he could feel her shiver against him, she was still cold. Yet he had nothing to give her to huddle in. The clothes he wore were also caked with dirt and hers had been taken as evidence as well. He made a mental note to text Sara and have her bring something for her to wear as soon as possible. He didn’t know what to say in this moment. Asking her if she was okay would just be an insult because he hated the way people asked him when he was recovering. But she let him go to settle back in the bed and then she spoke first. 

“Are you okay?” she asked hoarsely, voice sore from crying. 

“I was worried about you,” he admitted “when Russell finds Crenshaw and Kimball, I’m going to kill them.”

“McKeen,” she uttered now. 

“He’s not going anywhere,” he promised her, bringing his hand up to caress her cheek. The bruises on both sides of her face had turned dark purple and he felt sick again. All those years spent trying to avoid relationships out of fear of someone getting hurt like him and this happened so fast. It wasn’t fair to her. 

“You, me, us, buried,” she whispered now. 

“I know,” he sighed looking into her heartbroken eyes “I’m sorry for all of this, you deserve better, I never should have- we never should have- it’s too risky- because of me and what’s happened in my life.”

She realized, horrified, that he was trying to break up with her even though they had never officially been together. Her chest burned at the realization. She was not mad at him and she didn’t hate him. She wanted to be with him. He was crazy for thinking his past was the reason she was hurt. But she couldn’t tell him. Her voice was weak and choking out the words was hard. 

“Don’t-do that,” she managed to cry out to him “love-you.”

“What?” he asked shocked by her words. 

“I-love you,” she insisted, wrapping her arms around his neck, fearful of him leaving. 

She was staring at him with tear filled eyes and he realized he was a fool, a complete fool. Every person he lost before her was a blessing in disguise. She wanted to be with him even after seeing the worst of humanity. She did not see him as broken or unlovable. The way she was clinging to him, the way she cried for him, it was genuine. His heart had never felt this way before about anyone. He realized that his silence was probably hurting her. She wanted his response but was patient while he processed what was happening. He reached up to stroke her hair again and say, “I love you too,” 

Relieved, she pulled him closer to her, burying her face in his shoulder, eyes burning when she closed them. Now she felt safe, finally, after hours of agony. Her arms felt weak and she had to let him go. 

“Tired,” she complained to him. 

“Sleep,” he encouraged, sweeping her hair back again, over and over until she had closed her eyes. Once she settled, he moved to sitting beside the bed instead of on it. She kept her arm outstretched for him which he rubbed gently, holding her hand and kissing her fingers. As she dozed, he worried about whatever she was dreaming, hoping hers were nightmare free unlike the ones that plagued him for months after his rescue. They were going to be okay, in time, he knew, but right now her trauma was heightened, and her senses would be on high alert for a while. Still, he couldn’t help but smile, relieved, she was here, she was alive, she had given him a reason to live, and after all he had been through, that was all he needed.


End file.
